DICKDURRANCEII
Elegance living and elegance lost: Exuding
wealth and status, a Bengali matron watches
races at the Royal Calcutta Turf Club track.
Beyond the horses rises the Victoria Me
morial, a reminder that Britain founded Cal
cutta in 1690 and ruled until India gained
independence in 1947.
Rich Britons and Bengalis of earlier days
built mansions that gave Calcutta one of its
nicknames, "City of Palaces." Today few of the
old homes retain their glory. One residence
(right)now is cut into apartments for descend
ants of the builder, who use its columned
courtyard as a dairy.
row, two dozen adjacent dealers in used steel
rods and springs, a honeycomb with hun
dreds of stalls with saris. Isn't that bad-so
many competitors, so close together?
It's good, says a sari seller, it attracts many
shoppers, eager to bargain; and so there'll be
customers for every seller bargaining with
sufficient shrewdness.
I step into the center of competition for tea.
It comes from the foothills of the Himalayas,
some 300 miles to the north; it is shipped from
the Port of Calcutta down the Hooghly River
through the Bay of Bengal to all the tea
thirsty world. India grows a third of the
world's tea, and more than half of that is
auctioned in this ten-story building.
But first it must be tasted. Qualities vary
from grower to grower, from year to year;
thousands of shipments must be sampled. I
see rows of white bowls and a brisk routine:
1 gram tea plus 50 cc boiling water; after 6
minutes, judge the color, then....
"Ah-bright, strong, thick!" Bright means
reddish, lively, good.
"Hmn-dull, plain,
thin...." Why is one tea dubbed chesty? The
taster says he can sense the plywood of the
tea chest. "It's even worse if the wood wasn't
seasoned properly. That's cheesy."
The auction amphitheater occasionally
erupts with high-pitched barks, as small
traders quickly agree to split a consignment
for local consumption. The bulk of the ex
ports goes to England and the Soviet Union.
AT DUSK Subhas's neighborhood is dimly
lit, but on nearly every block shines a
doorway outlined in bright lights. These
are houses rented for marriage ceremonies
and the feasting of guests. This is the relative
ly cool season, between November and March
-a traditional time for weddings, before the
fierce heat and monsoon rains. But why are
so many people still outdoors?
"To us the streets are friendly," Subhas
says. "They are a big part of our life. We
make appointments to meet friends on the
street, we stand around, we talk...." He adds
that living conditions might have something
to do with it-the less room one has at home,
the more one feels at home on the street.
Living conditions most deeply impress the
foreigners on the sight-seeing bus setting out
at 8:30 a.m. from the government tourist
bureau-past Calcutta's big telephone ex
change to Howrah Bridge and across the
wide Hooghly; past Howrah Station, India's
National Geographic,April 1973
536